To Belong
by MortalTears
Summary: A report by Ashley Clearwater - Daily Profit reporter on the Hogwart Houses.
1. Investigating Hogwarts

**To Belong. **

A report by Ashley Clearwater, Daily Prophet.

Humble, Courageous, Cunning, and Intelligent. These are just a few of the words used in everyday vernacular at this school when describing its students. They go to classes, they play Quidditch and they wear their House colors with pride. Yet, what really goes on in the secret life of these seemingly quite achievers? We will now delve deep into this mysterious world known as the Hogwart Houses and reveal for the first time its sordid underbelly.

When a child enrolls into Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, their parents are undoubtedly full of pride. Hogwarts is after all argumentatively most prestigious of the magical schools operating in our world as we know it. Their grounds are lush with neatly trimmed lawns; they boost a full sized Quidditch pitch and pride themselves on having some of the most highly trained staff members the wizarding world has produced teaching their students. Hogwarts surely is a school to be reckoned with on the educational front.

However, it is not the state of the art facilities that are of most interest to the parents and its potential students. No, that honor is afford to the infamous Sorting Ceremony which takes place at the start of each school year and for many will undeniably, ultimately decide the social fate for these young wizards and witches.

However, before delving into those matters let us examine the Houses themselves. For those of you who have been living under a rock the Houses are named, naturally, after the four founders of Hogwarts. Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw – each of whom had certain character traits and expectations for their original students which have been carried on down the centuries and still clearly seen in the modern students today.

Many people have questioned the Sorting Hats techniques over the years, wondering if it picks Houses at random or whether it really identifies some particular trait from the subconscious minds of the students upon whose head it sits. For some of these youngsters it seems their houses are predetermined with many family lines all falling into the same House most notable of these examples is the Weasley family with all seven children being sorted into Gryffindor.

For others however the process is appears decidedly trickier. Some families have been known to deliberately try and mould certain thoughts and behaviors into their children since birth. In desperation some other parents have even been known to send the Headmaster of Hogwart, Albus Dumbledore a list of characteristic traits their children supposedly display in an attempt to sway the sorting hats judgment. There has been a considerable boom in this practice since young Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor. Many parents have tried, to apparently no avail to get their children sorted into the same house so they can rub shoulders with the young celebrity.

When asked about these attempts Albus Dumbledore had this to say, "Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak" Which made this reporter scratch her head and question the real sanity of the leading mind behind this famous school. On further investigation when asked what he thought about parents wanting their children to meet Mr Potter, Professor Dumbledore stroked his bread and stated in a more comfortably sane manner," It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

We were declined any further interview on the subject with the Head Master as he then excused himself saying he was urgently needed elsewhere yet it should be noted that not long after he was spotted strolling the corridors with a pair of students and sharing chocolate frogs with them.

Our minds still rattled with questions which were largely left unanswered. What really happens inside the infamous Hogwart Houses? Is there a difference that affects how your child might achieve in Hogwarts? Not satisfied thus far out investigation then took another track and we went to the Heads of the Houses themselves for more information.


	2. Go, Go, Gryffindor!

Minerva McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, has been teaching at Hogwarts since 1956. Currently she is most notably the Professor of Transfiguration which has been described by many a past student as being one of Hogwart most dangerous and complex classes. When we asked Professor McGonagall what she really thought of each of Hogwarts Houses she had this to say, "Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards." It was a reasonably satisfactory answer, if not a perfectly diplomatic one. We pressed the matter a little further with her, asking the hard questions about where she thought Voldemort was so terrible simply because he was sorted in Slytherin House? Or was it possible if he were to have been taken into the nurturing environment of a Hufflepuff common room and given the attention his broken mind needed would he have surfaced as powerful as he was? Isn't it true then, we asked, if Voldemort had been giving counseling at those young stages he'd have been fine and therefore those beloved character traits such as bravery and cunning Hogwarts is so proud about really are nothing more then a shameless ploy to draw in students and stack their numbers up as a sign of prestige.

At this point the professor gave us as equally hard stare which all the hairs on the neck of our necks prickle. Professor McGonagall decided the interview was over but not wanting to alienate the head of a most respected house we politely explained that it was a reports job to ask questions even if we did not believe in them wholly ourselves. She seemed to calm down a bit at this and remarked that deceit was a noted Slytherin trait and with a faint smile politely suggested that perhaps had this reporter attended Hogwarts that we might have been sorted thusly. She left us then with a feeling that somehow we'd been intelligently insulted and it was at this point we decided to allow the matter to drop.

Our attentions then turned to Gryffindor's house ghost Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. Sir Nicholas had been haunting Hogwarts for as long as anyone could remember and surely must have had some inside scoop on how things really operated in the school. Most students seem content to use the ghost's informal name of "Nearly Headless Nick", however, the Gryffindor students failed to inform this reporter that Sir Nicholas found this usage offensive. I was left to find out that piece of trivia on my own. However after five apologies, and a reassurance that I would print in my article that he should be allowed to join the Headless Hunt, Sir Nicholas graciously forgave me. (Note: The Daily Profit would like to take this opportunity to remind our readers that we in no way take any responsibility for any ghosts being accepted or rejected into the Headless Hunt.)

Sir Nicholas then consented to an interview and spoke of his house proudly, reminding us that Gryffindor is named after the Hogwarts founder, Godric Gryffindor. The house colors are scarlet and gold, with the mighty lion blazed symbol. Like the lion, Gryffindor's students are described as being courageous, proud, and bold. He then went on to name some of the more famous Gryffindors, which included:

Mr. Harry Potter - the boy-who-lived.

Mr. Potter's father James Potter and mother, Lily Potter Evans.

Head Master, Albus Dumbledore.

Mr. Sirius Black.

Mr. Arthur Weasley and etc:

After rousing ourselves from the half daze Sir Nicholas had kindly dozed us into we thanks him for his time and thankfully, hurriedly made our way off intending to interview some Hogwarts more notable Gryffindor students themselves. Naturally the students in question were unavailable for interview as they were practicing Quidditch.

However, we were lucky enough to be allowed to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch team in action. Harry Potter was once again in fine form as Seeker, arguably the best seeker the team has ever had. During training he was marvelously pulling off a steep barrel roll towards the streaking snitch when he suddenly seemed to become distracted by a younger female student with red hair cheering from the sidelines. Mr. Potter appeared to blush the same color as his robes before trying to correct himself yet somehow ended up head first in a nearby tree with his broom racing off and closely shaving the eagerly awaiting Whomping Willow. Another student who we later identified as being one Ms. Hermoine Granger was quite vocal in her disgust at the display and quickly shoved the doubled over, laughing Mr. Ron Weasley onto his broom to rescue the stranded Potter. Unfortunately for Mr. Weasley as he was reaching for the seeker the still uncaught snitch clipped his ear, startling him and also caused him to fall off his broomstick and joined Potter in the tree, hanging upside down by his shoelaces.

There was no joy to be found from these students in terms of our unanswered questions and as we departed the rest of the Quidditch team was being directed by Ms Granger in a second rescue attempt.


	3. Sssslytherin

Having no luck with Gryffindor, our investigation team move on and decided to approach Gryffindor's House arch rivals Slytherin. We managed to catch Professor Snape as he was coming out from his first year's potion class. Perhaps this was not the opportune moment to speak to him as he looked haggard and appeared to have not touched a hair brush in a few weeks at least, however, good reporters press on despite adverse conditions.

Severus Snape seemed to visibly cringe as we put to him the questions about his house, muttering only a short almost scathingly nonsensical reply which seemed to indicate to he thought we were asking for a potions lesson more then anything else. "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." My crew and I were in the process of explaining to the Professor that whilst it would surely to an honor to learn from him we really wanted to know what he thought about his students and whether they all had something in common, such as pureblood and parents with a large Gringotts account.

He seemed momentarily perplexed and caught off guard. Unfortunately he never got an opportunity to refute out claims as the Professor suddenly became unavailable when his wand abruptly exploded in his hand. Apparently one of the students thought it was a good idea to play a little prank on the already sour teacher. As the Professor stalked away with a blacked face and hands in search of more contraband brought from 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' we were not sure who to feel more sorry for, the professor himself or the student, who if the tales are correct had to be from Gryffindor to pull a brave stunt such as that.

Undeterred by recent events we forged on managing to corner Head Master once more on the second floor. Whilst Dumbledore still claimed to be busy, as if we did not notice the pair of socks in his hand which he was undoubtedly about to have washed he did offer us a rare opportunity to speak to someone who would without doubt have all the answers we were looking for. Granted entry into the Head Master's office, which then made a hasty exit, we came face to brim with the famous Hogwarts Sorting Hat.

"_Or perhaps in Slytherin  
You'll make your real friends  
Those cunning folk use any means  
To achieve their ends._"

The Sorting Hat started things off by cooing a strangely eerie verse to a song which managed to not only answer at least one of our questions but did so without us having to speak. This is a chilling insight into the personality traits, which typically dominate the Slytherin students.

Described as being cunning, manipulative and even on occasion treacherous the future students have such Slytherin role models such as Lucius Malfoy, Tom Riddle, and the three Blacks, Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Regulus to follow. Perhaps there was something to this mystical sorting after all. Wasn't Slytherin House was named after the founder Salazar Slytherin, whom as all wizarding world knows was a passionate advocate for only accepting pure blood wizards and witches. It was this stand split the founders and ultimately saw Salazar leaving the school forever, leaving behind the House colors of green and silver which are still worn with pride and the serpent mascot signifying the founder's gift of being a Parselmouth. Perhaps along with these trivial things, Salazar also left an indomitable spirit which called to all those students with a hint of overbearing ambition or bias towards his ancient views to come into his house.

At this point the Sorting Hat went silence and chose to only look at us with his felt eyes. We got the distinct impression that if we wanted to speak to him further one of us would have to wear him and after his uncanny ability to seemingly read our thoughts from across the room naturally none of my crew was willing to give it a try at the present time.

We returned then to Professor Snape, justifying to ourselves that his bad mood was more tempting then anything the Hat might read from us. When we finally caught up to Professor, he was none the happier however; he did tell us he has been Potions Master and Head of Slytherin since 1980. That was all. The Bloody Baron, the notorious ghost of the House also declined us an interview, well, rather he howled loudly and chased myself and my crew right out of the corridor and off the floor.

However, this was perhaps a fortuitous turn of events because soon after we were able to get a quick peak into the Slytherin common room, aided by a seemingly obliging student. In the common room we were fortunate enough to meet many of the current Slytherin students. Our producer, Robby Snow, who was shooting a documentary along side our investigation decided to test the stereotype of a typical Slytherin. He left three galleons on the table, and we observed a young boy with white-blonde hair slipping the money into his pocket. Robby then announced he had lost the money and offered a galleon reward to whoever returned it. The same boy approached Robby to claim the reward. Robby was pleased to see that the idea that all Slytherin's were devious was questionable, and was delighted to tell the students about his career. Whilst talking Robby handed the student his reward, and it was not until after the student offered his thanks and flattery that Robby realized that he had not been given his original three galleons back.

When he approached the young student about it, he claimed that he had returned them. Robby disputed which resulted in an outburst, "Wait until my father hears about this!" Robby listened for a moment growing steadily more agitated. He suddenly shoved the boy over a chair, grabbed his galleons and fled the room with a satisfied, smug look which was most unbefitting a serious producer. Soon after the incident the boy in question also fled the scene.

We continued to interview the other students until upon hearing, some commotion remarkably coming from the Hogwarts towers. At this point we saw Professor Snape hurriedly swept past the room once again eternally agitated. When we last saw Professor Snape, he was fleeing the grounds with the same young Hogwarts hopeful which clashed with our producer. We later were able to identify him as being Draco Malfoy, son of respected community member and suspected Death Eater Lucious Malfoy.

At this point, Professor McGonagall demanded the interviews with Slytherin students be terminated and we moved on.


End file.
